Can anything help the refugees of Sudan?

September 06, 2004|By Frederick J. Chiaventone. Frederick J. Chiaventone is a retired Army officer and former professor of international security affairs at the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College.

The densest among us must realize that our armed forces are decisively committed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Call it what you will--nation-building or peace enforcement--we're at the operational end of our rope.

This of course mitigates our taking decisive action in the growing crisis in Sudan, where the acknowledged government under President Omar el-Bashir has employed the services of the Arab tribesmen known as Janjaweed to suppress the dissent of black Africans in the interior of that country.

It's not a pretty picture. For the past few years the Janjaweed (think heavily armed Hell's Angels on horseback instead of motorcycles) have swept in from the countryside to wreak death and destruction on the potential opposition to the central government. The death toll thus far exceeds 30,000. More than 1.5 million people have been displaced, many seeking refuge in the desolate border regions of neighboring Chad. Even the United Nations has declared the situation among the world's worst human catastrophes.

In these dirty, overcrowded, disease-ridden sumps of human misery called refugee camps, it is only a matter of time before the death toll grows exponentially. Meanwhile, in the nation's interior, more than half of the villages of Sudan's Darfur region have been systematically destroyed by the marauding Arab tribesmen. Murder, rapine, terror and abuse are their stock in trade.

Human-rights groups are horrified and protest this blatant abuse of humanity. But el-Bashir has played this game for a while and knows how to play the odds. As human rights activists and statesmen alike decry the conditions in Sudan, el-Bashir shrugs his shoulders and says he's doing what he can.

And, by the way, we wouldn't want to do anything that might disrupt the flow of Sudan's oil to Western markets. In common terms we might call this extortion. El-Bashir would call it good business.

It would be nice if the United States could say, "Cease the war. Stop it or we will crush you like the vermin you are." But this won't happen. Even with the specter of Rwanda fresh in our minds, there is little we can do that will appreciably reverse the genocide-in-progress, which is Sudanese policy.

As Americans we like to say "put your money where your mouth is" (as in so many cases, the "money" in this instance might be termed troops), but we're unable to do this. Not from lack of will, but rather lack of resources. However desirable it is to get Sudan's government to call off its Janjaweed dogs, we, and our British allies, are tapped out. Someone else is going to have to do it.

The problem, of course, is who? The sad lesson of recent history is that those with the most at stake--in this case let's say the French and Germans--who benefit from the flow of oil controlled by el-Bashir are not about to rock the boat. How about other Africans? Don't hold your breath. A few months ago I had the dubious honor of helping to train African troops for peacekeeping duties in Congo. While taking a short respite I had the opportunity to visit with Derek Warby at the burgeoning Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Center in Accra, Ghana.

After a tour of the growing facilities and a review of planned installations and operations, we retired to Warby's home--the oddly named "White House"--for tea. While chatting with Warby it became abundantly clear that his task was Herculean. While African governments are eager to accept foreign funding, they are less than eager to accept foreign advice as to how the funding can be expended--especially in regard to peacekeeping operations. It amounts to: "Give us the money, but don't pretend to tell us how to spend it."

Despite the honesty and dedication of fair-minded folks like Warby, it was anyone's guess as to how the money devoted to "peacekeeping operations" is actually spent. Little, I fear, is making it down to the soldier level.

This is evident when one looks at the motley array of men assigned to peacekeeping duties.

A few hours after my meeting with the admirable Warby, I was out in the bush with would-be peacekeepers.

In one Congo-destined battalion, for example, I counted five variants of the AK-47, an odd admixture of army and navy personnel in the same platoons, and a dizzying array of uniforms. A number of the troops had neither boots nor socks. Not all spoke the same language, so English was the agreed-upon language of training. There were no radios available for the training. Three weeks later they would be expected to separate warring factions in Congo. I shudder to think of the consequences of deploying such a force to Sudan.

So what will be done to help the war-weary refugees of Sudan?

The short answer, I fear, is "nothing." Nothing will be done until it is too late. When millions more Sudanese begin to sicken and die in the squalor of the refugee camps, the TV networks might send camera crews in to record the misery. Some humanitarian groups will launch commercials on late-night television asking for donations. The French and Germans will cluck their tongues, wag their fingers at us and tell us what the United States has done wrong. And the Sudanese will die.